 You have verbs in English that basically have two components. They have a key verb, but they have a preposition that's part of the verb. So we're like out, in, on, over, between, under, at, something like that. But it's connected to the verb to create the meaning. So for example, we say you have verb to make, but the verb to make up actually means something completely different. So it means, for example, to reconcile, it can also mean to fabricate. So he made up the facts as he went along, and he was lying basically. Almost invariably, verbs of that nature, phrasal verbs, where you're saying the preposition that word like up, in, out, over, under, if it's a component of the verb, it's part of the verb, that's considered informal language use. It's not wrong, but it's not considered terribly professional to use a lot of those type of verbs. So there's a few that we say you can get away with. Point out is one of them, but generally, for example, if you say something like this brought down the company, no, you would say this led to the downfall of the company. They made up and became friends. No, they reconciled and became friends. This was taken out of the equation. This was removed from the equation. You'd always look for a single word alternate. But as I said, there's a few that are allowed and point out as one of them, because it's so clear, I think. Well, he pointed this out. It's just one of those things that does work on a professional level. But you don't have a lot of those. So that's why I said that's something to keep in mind as well. Then what are, as I said, the basic mechanism rules here, direction in the present. If you have statements, what remains in the present, no matter what you are discussing? Well, basically, if you look at this, statements of intent, agreement and mission, generally the tense in the statement being reported follows the meaning of the sentence. So in other words, yeah, if you have a statement of mission, then no matter what was said at the time, you always look at where is that statement supposed to go. They hope that all nations will take responsibility for the situation, because they're talking about an actual future. And we're still talking about that future. If you look at this further, then what you see is what you generally see in the past, citation, things that were written previously, then are discussed historically. So the statement usually follows the tense. The reporting verb, they hope that all nations would take responsibility. So now I'm citing something that was said, and I'm in a sense delocating at the right time. I'm looking at it solely as something that was written or stated at a particular moment in the past. And then if you look at it from that point of view, what's the general schema of things? Basically, if you have something that you wish to keep in the past, because you're reporting it as something that took place, was stated, was pointed out, was asserted at a moment in the past, then the present tense in that statement becomes the past tense. I am a teacher, he said he was a teacher. The past becomes the past perfect. I was a teacher, he said he had been a teacher. Modals become past modals. I will deal with this later. He said that he would deal with this later. And futures become future pasts. So I am going to deal with this at a later point. He said he was going to deal with it at a later point. And the only thing that you keep always generally in the present tense is if the statement is universally true, laws of nature, laws that are still accident, rules of logic, and common wisdom are generally kept in the present tense. And or the future being suggested is a real future in the exchange. Welcome back. The second session, at this point in time, what I'd like to, what we're going to focus on is I have two key issues that are going to come up. One is I want to look at lexicon building. I said that I want to look at word choice, how to develop vocabulary, how to look at vocabulary with kind of new eyes in this respect. But in doing this, the first thing that I want to point out is if you look at the first slide, it says languages have strengths and weaknesses. And one of the things that I want to point out, we talked before about why, we talked before about why, for example, it's difficult to translate. And one of the reasons why it is difficult is not just because you have to deal with the different words and grammatical structures of each language, but the fact is not all languages can do all of the same things. And one of the things that I can point out to you is that, for example, English when it comes to grammar is actually not that great a language. In terms of expressive power, English grammar doesn't do much. The fact is if you want a truly powerful language in terms of grammatical expression, Arabic is much better in that regard. It's got a much more subtle, varied grammatical structure. If you're looking for a language that has, where tone and spoken language is much more varied, Chinese and Japanese are far outstripped English in any ability to do any of these things. But where is the strength of English? English has a phenomenal lexicon. It has a vocabulary that is said by many scholars to be essentially the largest and most potent vocabulary ever in history. There's never been a language that had as many different words, word structures, word variations, variations in meaning as English. There it is extremely strong. And I want to give you, just to give you one example of how this works. It kind of seems like a silly example, but it shows the whole thing. One of my favorite words in the English language is the word SARF. Z-A-R-F, SARF. Now, why is this one of my favorite words? Well, because first of all, it's not a made-up word. It's not, for example, what they call a corporidinum. Corporidinums are all of those basically words that we use for things named after the company that makes it. So that you call an ice-polishing machine as Zamboni, that Americans call tissue papers, Kleenex, and they call photocopies as Xerox and Instamatic photos of Polaroid, that kind of thing. It's not that kind of word. It actually, I was talking before about Arabic, but it actually has an Arabic derivation. It's from old Arabic. And this is the cool part. It refers to something that, well, given you were just out to lunch and before you were having coffee breaks, you may have very well have held one in your hands. It refers to a fairly everyday object. And this tells you how precise this language is. Does anyone have any clue what a Czar is? Bansi? No. Okay. Yes. Yeah? What? You're closing in on it. Not the cup, but... What is it? Under the cup. I don't know the word. If you go to Starbucks, you get one of those hot cups of coffee and you put one of those sleeves around it? Yeah. That's a Czar. There's actually a word for that. Now, see, you could say there's a word for it in Dutch, too. But all you did in Dutch is you took, like, three different words and put them together. So it's called, I thought the translation was something like coffee co-powder chair or something along those lines. And I'm like, yeah, okay, compound word, that works, too. But here, you've got, and the thing is, what's great is the derivation is old Czar. It's actually from the word envelope or container. In fact, that's still the word for envelope and container in Turkish of all things. And it somehow made its way into the English language as Czar. Originally, it referred only to those filigree, silver, you know, really fancy ones for tea and coffee cups. But now it also refers to the sleeves. This, by the way, gave me one of my better moments in my life with my son because as an English teacher, that is, right? Because, so, this is a point, he's a psychology student, one day we were out and we decided to get some coffee and we went to Starbucks and we go there and he went up to order the coffee and he comes with these two cups and he's walking over to me and he's all like, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. And I said in a kind of loud theatrical voice, I picked up two of these colders and I said, you're gonna need a Czar when I held it up like this. And of course, he looked at me like, my dad, I can't take him out in public. But at that very moment, one of the baristas on the other side of the thing pointed at me and said, see, he knows what they're called. And I was like, yes, I am vindicated as a professional. So it was a great moment. But the point is, this is a language with a lot of different words. And what we can say is, if we look at English, Lex kind of language of the law, Mark Twain certainly helps us along. Words matter to you folks. It is all about specificity. As he pointed out, the difference between the right word and the almost right word, the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug. He called them lightning bugs. These days we refer to them as fireflies, but the idea is very much still present. As I said, in this respect, however, you have a task ahead of you because there are 650,000 different words and definitions in the English language. As I said, the largest of any known language, it took 80 years to put together the first Oxford English Dictionary. The reason, I don't know if any of you, if you go to like an old school library, one that still actually has books on the shelves and stuff, is they often have a lecture and will have in front of them one of these gigantic dictionaries on the top. And the great thing is, if it's an Oxford, you look at this thing, it weighs about 11 pounds, if not more. And it often says at the bottom, explicated or condensed or a bridged version. You're saying, how can this be a bridged? It's like a 20-pound book. The reason is the actual thing is 26 volumes. It's about, well, it's about the length of this if you were to print it out. As I said, it took 80 years to put together and a little note for those of you who wish to know some Tilver University lore. Initially, the writing space that they used to collect all these words, to collate them and to file them, was called the Scriptorium. And interestingly enough, they worked out of a warehouse called the Scriptorium. We later named the office that we were using for the exchange of translation and correction documents at the translation and correction service, the Scriptorium, in honor of said warehouse. And then still later, the name filtered its way out into the university proper and is now, in fact, the name of our Writing Assistance Center. So it lives on throughout history and lore. But what do you need? You don't need 650,000 orders. I doubt there's anyone out there who has control over 650,000 orders. If they are there, though, it would be wonderful to meet said person. We need some interesting conversation we had there, no doubt. What do you use? An accomplished user of English. So we're talking someone at really a high level of usage and professional usage, uses about 40,000 orders. A competent user will have between 15 and 20,000 orders. You need to find the right words. That's the thing. You have to go into this. So I'm going to start you off with one word. Don't look at your sheets anymore. So don't look at your sheets for a moment. Ask your word. The word way, and I wrote this down. I seem to have an issue with the word way. But what could possibly be my problem with the word way? Is there anything wrong with the word way? The difference from the context in which you used. Exactly. My problem with the word way is that I've noticed that foreign speakers and writers of English use it way too much. That this is right away the problem. Without looking, give me some more words. What other words are there? Yeah, so now you have to start thinking about it. Okay, think literally. Yeah. About word way. Yeah, just different words from the word way. Path. Road. Direction. Means. Yeah, see now you're starting to think abstractly. So means. Method. Mode. Road. Yeah, road, path. Root. What? That thing can even have an action. So then you're talking about that you, for example, you take a run down a certain. Exactly. What else is there? Approach. Said that fashion. Procedure. Process. Trajectory. Manor. Style. But look what's happening. What's happening to our word? At this center point, when I have all the way over here, you've got words that are literally road, route, path, highway, streets, avenue, whatever. And by the way, think also then the. Figure new forms of that. You can have a literal path through a forest, but also the path to glory. You can talk about career trajectories. You can talk about the route through the winding through the route of the courts. All of these things are then figurative as well. But then you have also the abstract. Manor, method, mode, approach. Direction. And what did I just use it as? I used it in an idiomatic fashion. You use it way too much. I was using it as an idiomatic modifier, but you could also say quite, for example. So this is quite often the case, or this is too often the case, or this is used with too high a degree of frequency. See, then you start looking in that sense. So one word already leads us, if we then look at this, to this list. The English Lexicon language of law, synonyms for the word way, approach, fashion, manner, method, process, procedure, means, direction, mode, route, road, style, path, track, perspective, and anything else we can come up with. There are loads of these. What can I suggest you do? Become very friendly with certain online sites. Again, I'm going to be, throughout this course, I'm going to be giving you references. In this case, a very simple reference. www.dictionary.com. Yeah, I know. It's a really disappointing name, but I've been told that there's also a really brilliant gastronomic site called food.com. So sometimes food.com. So sometimes the obvious just is the right word. And in this case, dictionary is the word. Because what is dictionary.com? It's a site that gives you, it's basically Google for words. You punch in a word, it looks through all the key databases, online dictionaries, so you'll get references from the Websters, from the Longman, from all of the authoritative online dictionaries. It cross-references them, it compares them, and it gives you things like the synonyms of the word. So the words with a similar meaning. It'll give you the antonyms, words with an opposite meaning. It will give you related words. It'll tell you if this is a noun, does it also have an adjective? Is there a modifier form? Is there a verbalization of this word? A verb form. So all of this stuff, loads of usages, all is there. So dictionary.com is definitely a place that you want to go. That being said, let me take a look. Where was I? I've got a few of my own. Now, I will point something out to you. I've got a list of words here. I want to show you what I can recommend. But these are really obscure looking words. However, and this is the interesting thing, there are words that will lead you down a very good path. Because first of all, many of the words here have hidden meanings. And I like that. Because this shows you how literal and figurative words work. For example, if you look at the very top word, anodyne, a medicine that relieves or relieves pain. Very good. A medicine that relieves or reduces pain. That's what it is. An anodyne is basically a painkiller. But did you also find the figurative meaning of the word? I'm looking at the dictionary.com. Related words? Because, and see, sometimes even the authoritative dictionaries let us down in this respect. Anodyne is also and it can be found online. But it's difficult. The figurative meaning of anodyne is, for example, if a thing itself is harmless or causes no harm. And what we're usually talking about is things like speech and solutions. An anodyne solution to a problem would be a solution that causes no pain to any of the people involved in the solution. So, in a sense, an anodyne solution to a reorganization quandary would be that no one winds up getting fire. Because that would be the least painful. The politician when struck by accusations of corruption tried to turn away attention by giving an anodyne speech about patriotism. A painless speech about something that everyone could feel good about. So, if you look at these words, as I said, chimera. Same problem. Chimera is for anyone who's taken Greek. Hey, no classicists in the room? I'm not taking it anymore. Ah, yes, that's not a long time ago. Mythical creature. So, head of a lion, body of a goat, tail of a serpent. But what are chimerical things in life? Chimerical things are things that the ideals that elude our reality. So, for example, a chimerical ideal or a chimerical dream is one that cannot be attained. It's an ideal. But, at the same time, chimeras can also be combinations of things that don't really seem to actually combine. So, for example, if we look at something like Air France, KLM is called by many is seen by many as something of a chimera. In other words, they joined as a company, but you still see the head of the lion, the body of the goat. You don't actually, they don't seem to be coming together in the way that they should. Then, you have words like detrimental. What's interesting about the word detrimental is it doesn't have a hidden meaning, but it has a hidden value. Because what does detrimental mean? Something is detrimental. It's harmful. But if we wish to say that something is harmful in the most official way possible, we often use the word detrimental. So, you often see this, for example, in contracts or in rules and regulations for things like employment. No employee can take up or undertake any further activities outside of this job that would be detrimental to his or her execution of the duties at hand. So, then you often see words like detrimental being used there to show that it's we mean it. This is the official word being put down. A few epitome gun-zoning co-aids I will point out. Those are words that I like because they solve certain problems. Well, guns are not so much, but I'll explain that in a minute. Epitome is a great descriptive word because if something is the epitome of something else, it means it's the perfect exemplar, the perfect example of something. So, Jeeves is the epitome of the great, Jeeves as portrayed in PG Woodhouse novels is the great, is the epitome of the great English butler. It has all the features that you would expect there. So, you could say if you're looking again at analogy in the law, you could say the epitome of X would be this because it has all the components that one would expect to see as defined by law, regulation, etc. In that sense, I'll skip guns for a moment. In co-8 is a great word because it gives you a solution to a problem that a lot of people face. And that is, you're often at a loss for a word to describe something that's good but not yet mature. Now, what am I talking about? For example, say you have an idea, a concept, but it's not fully formed. You know you're on the right track but you're not there yet. That would be an in co-8 idea or plan. In other words, it's a plan, it's an idea. It's not flawed but it's not fully conceived. It's not fully formed. And this, I know is a problematic thing, for example in areas like copyright law where you're often talking about claims being made against people by saying, yeah, but I had that idea first and they're saying, yeah, but you didn't have the full idea. And then they make it like it's flawed. I'm like, no. One person had the in co-8 idea and the other had the drew it to fruition, drew it to maturity, made it complete. So you see that these words can be used in that sense. Then you have words like mordant, specious and quixotic. These I will give you are more the words of the nature of Cardozo. These are the words that are a bit precious and euphismic but just because I want to point them out, mordant is biting, sarcastic. So if someone has mordant commentary on something, it's biting or sarcastic. However, specious I can joke about this but the truth is specious is a great word in the law for discussing something in the law because what does it mean? It means that an argument or a position is being put forward that looks on the surface to be cloyingly convincing but it's actually in truth completely incorrect. So to speak of specious argumentation, you're not just saying someone's wrong, you're saying they're wrong but they're putting us on the wrong foot because they're actually saying something that sounds right but is still utterly incorrect. And quixotic, well, what is that from Don Quixote, Cervantes' great classic work, a quixotic battle is one that is waged nobly with great intent and with great fervor against a non-existent enemy. So essentially when you're fighting the good battle but not against anyone that you really should be fighting against you're fighting quixotic battle. The last one up there was gonzo, why did I put that in there? Gonzo actually refers to originally it was jazz music and it means to play unhinged the word is often used for things that are crazy, weird but the truth is in the world of academe and professions, things that are gonzo tend to be things that are subjective, participatory when they shouldn't be, for example journalism and that rely most heavily on giving an insight into a greater truth or a greater emotion as opposed to the literal facts at hand and I will point out I am a biased individual myself. Pretty much the only reason I put this word in the list is I did my phd on gonzo journalism and so I thought it would be cute to give you that identifier as well. Now what else is out there? Well there are loads of words. For example in English sometimes you just make stuff up where it's like serendipity simblandity let's see pundit kudos robots cyberspace meritocracy prequel and retronym are all words not retronym but everything up to prequel what do all these words share? They first appeared in literature. I want to show you that there are words for things but I also want to show that there are alternative meanings for these words as well and that's exactly indeed what you need to keep in mind is you're always dealing with both sides of the equation. So on the one hand as I said if we look at our model from the beginning the one hand you have Oliver Wendell Holmes Claire is a Val little perhaps not as much in that respect in terms of flexibility and precision but gets to the point. Then you have Cardozo who's nothing but artifice and art of the word but is not necessarily always going to make his point for every audience because he needs things that you need to bring an awful lot to the table. So you're absolutely right in that respect. However there is method to my madness because the truth is where am I at this? One of the things that I want to show you is that there are categories of words. You have for example words with high degree of specificity that was the first list that I had. You have words that are basically coinages, words that we invent this is this group of words. I can point out to you if you look a little further for example I also have words like this we use words to make other words and then you have words like scuba, laser, aids, radar, pen, etc. All words that are what we call acronymic. But what did I discover? And then I'm going to start looking at legal words as well. But what did I discover? At the end of this journey I have a master list of words that I drew solely solely from the material that I got from this course from the fiscal state aid course. So looking through the notes and the PowerPoints and stuff from the lectures you were doing I put together a lexicon and what you'll see then is all of the features of everything that I'm discussing now comes back in that list as well and those my friend are words you absolutely are going to need to know. So I'm running through an enormous field of words, 650,000 words to lead to your language and that's the thing that's tricky but trust me we will get there in the end. In fact the end will be fairly soon because it's basically the first hour of this session so that's about it. And the payoff is large trust me. Okay so as I said if we look at this, so then you have words like this, serendipity and blade, pundit, kudos, robot, cyberspace, meritocracy and prequel these are all words that were actually first coined in literature to actually describe things for which there was no proper word. Now in this case I will definitely grant you there are a few here that are hyper specific or hyper obscure first of all serendipity is known these days for most people because of the film title and basically it refers to fortuitous discovery timely made in other words if you find something out just at the moment that you need to find it out that's considered serendipity was made up in a short story by an English author writing about Cylon later however William Boyd one of my favorite novels Armadillo thought there should really be an opposite to this word there should be a form to describe what it's like to constantly accidentally discover stuff you really don't want to know about at the moment you least want to find out about it and he called that zimblanity the first word is from the princes of serendip which were who were supposedly legendary princes who always made fortuitous discoveries and zimblanity is named after Nova Zambla which William Boyd thought had to be one of the most unfortunate discoveries ever made certainly for the captain and crew at the time then pundit is a word that refers to someone who's considered to be a knowledgeable person about the details and arcana of things that most people don't want to know about so for example a political pundit is someone who is way more about politics than most people even want to know it was coined by Time Magazine as was the word kudos which means high praise in Greece in Greek so as I said you have a lot of these types of words as well then I pointed out you also have for example words like this retronyms what are retronyms? retronyms are all the words we've had to come up with because the original word has been taken over to mean something else I'll point out we now call regular guitars acoustic guitars used to be the only kind there was that was the whole point of a guitar is it's an acoustic instrument but now with electric guitars now we have to have a different word for it rotary phones rotary phones I remember my first apartment this was great I mean this was in the 1980s and it had an old phone so in the 1980s I had a phone that was like 30 years old I felt like I was living in a Raymond Chandler novel you know I mean this like humongous bake like phone you know that kind of like early day kind of plastic but you know I miss something and you know what I miss you could slam a bake like my cell phone if you were really angry at someone you could literally like you know what you can bam and throw it down I can't do that anymore my cell phone I mean it's like you know what you can beep no there's nothing there I want an app for this I want something so I can say I press a different button and it just goes clang and I don't feel happy again so retronyms you have all these words out there as well analog watch plain text natural language yes unfortunately conventional war because that wasn't horrific enough we had to come up with non-conventional forms then you also have words like this as I said acronyms the words that come from making up other words we don't even think of them as being phrases anymore scuba diving very few people consider the fact that it actually means self-contained underwater breathing apparatus laser light application to the stimulation emission emission radiation by the way interesting little irony Charles harddowns the guy who invented the laser was not interested in lasers he was only interested in the fact that he could bundle the light so he could study the high agitation emission of radiation but serendipity engineers came by and said Chuck that's really interesting we could probably do something with this and we got laser technology so you have all of those words as well but then you start getting down to the nitty gritty what about the words that you need and use for example on a daily basis and again now don't look at your slides some words false friends look at this list exist attend eventual college consequent actual lose check increase implied fantasy I put these words on the board because these are words that you often use but you don't want to use what do you think you really need to say exist but things don't exist of other things they consist of other things exist is in Dutch bestan it means that something is but to consist of means it has the properties of where it has the components of this this book consists of six different sections this course consists of nine different sessions but it but it always exists it's just there to attend when in fact what we often mean is what's the problem with the word attend it's too formal you attend college you attend classes but you visit a church or country so you also have to watch there do you want that what about eventual a lot of users are using that for is not what it's meant to be useful what does it actually mean if something is eventual it means that it's it's going to happen at some point later in time but what you're usually talking about is that there's a possibility it will happen in Dutch even too ill for example what you're really talking about is possible college I'll point out I just put this on the board because I work at a university college does not refer to classes it always refers to the building and the place itself so this university this law school is a college what we're doing here is a class or a lecture or a seminar whatever you wish you otherwise call it consequence a lot of people use it for is you do it first this time this way then you keep doing it that same way that's not what it means consequence means that it's the follow up to something it's what is the result of what you're looking for then is consistent actual is the same thing if something is actual it doesn't mean that it's from the here and now it just means it's the thing itself the actual school of law is in building M but the virtual school of law is the world you know I mean some okay I'm making that up but you get my point but what you're talking about then if you mean actual is in what's going on right now the actual law at hand then you're talking about the current law so and if you're talking about news it's the topical news so it's the news of the moment so topical or current lose what's my problem with that is that people use it interchangeably to mean not have anymore but also for something not being tight remember it's lose and loose so one oh two ohs there is a difference check versus control oh this is evil and I've got just the group for an evil word like this because if you know anything about accounting you know that checking something and controlling something are two very distinct activities to check something is to make sure that it has no basically that it's all there it has no problems it's up to speed as it were but to control means to monitor to keep abreast of to know exactly where things stand at any given moment and that's very much a professional phrase so in that sense yeah we can balance control because they're looking to make those checks throughout time keep everything up to speed not just in terms of functionality but also in terms of legality also in terms of ability to report on something increase is used to mean everything that has to do with improvement but it's not always the word you want sometimes you want to talk about enhancing something so it's not that you don't increase the quality of something you enhance the quality of something or you improve the quality of something or you raise you looking at different words there ah now I've got one I'll put the list up here look at these two words if you look on the some words are false friends sheet imply versus implicate what's the difference your lawyers you should be able to do this in five seconds implicate means that bring some consequences yeah you're on the right track there imply means that it's ah as a hidden meaning to imply means simply to suggest can be a hidden meaning it could be an underlying motive but to implicate means to basically imply that someone is involved in something that is improper so if you're implicated in a crime you're basically being told that you're part and parcel of that criminal activity and indeed from it having consequences implication as a word and fantasy the word that's often being looked for is not fantasy which is a certain byproduct of the imagination but literally imagination itself some words need no introduction watch out for these these terms are all nonsensical imply because the keyword itself already contains the modifier word advance planning that's the point of planning it's done in advance total extinction no such thing as partial extinction if that were the case then the thinking question is not extinct complete mastery that's the idea of mastery is you have complete control consequent results something is consequent if something is a result it is a consequent it comes after necessary requisite that's the whole idea of the term requisite is it is a necessity mutual cooperation yeah I could see a kind of sarcastic usage of that term but basically you don't want to do that these are all by the way terms that I have run into so these are things I see people using an important essential that's the idea of an essential it's important and consensus of opinion you see this in English press a lot a consensus is an agreement of opinion that's the whole point of consensus so you don't need a consensus of opinion because it's always about an opinion and the word consent it's not on the list but sometimes one uses the word consent it has a slight different meaning but can you explain as opposed to what yeah sometimes I'm confronted with someone in the past well there is consent instead of consensus no that means something completely different then you're basically giving someone permission yeah yeah yeah so for example that's in for example in labor law and criminal law the key idea of consent has to do with things like sexual harassment for example talking about if someone does not give consent then it's harassment because otherwise it's by mutual consent that's the whole idea yeah yeah but consensus is really just we all agree but you can also in that sense mutual consent is then consensus uh yeah in a sense yeah yeah yeah look at this list and again do not look at the next page so if you look at the list where it says where it starts with despite the fact that but don't look at the one that has two columns that has the solution to this give me one word for each of these phrases so in the event that yeah if despite the fact that that's the first one actually sorry nevertheless however although anything like that will work by means of yeah it depends on the context in fact you can get through with by all of those that will work at some future time you can kick yourself later yeah I mean that's sometimes again the choice between Cardozo and Holmes is quite cool